him grew sharper and more distinct. Objects farther away came into view in the shadowy twilight. His vision improved as the light around him died to levels more like those to which he was accustomed. With keener eyes, Vheod saw figures making their way through the trees. Two men carried a long log through an area of felled trees. He quietly pressed through the foliage to get a better look.
Now he could see more figures in the woods. A dozen men, all wielding axes, shaved the branches from felled trees. A few toted the logs off somewhere else. Each man wore a thick beard, and their thick, sturdy shirts revealed massive, muscular frames-Sweat dripped from brows hung low on weary necks. It looked to Vheod as if these men were ending their day of work, perhaps more hindered by the dying light than he.
'Well have this area cleared by tomorrow, then we can begin building,' Vheod heard one of them say.
“Fine,' another replied with a good natured smile, 'that's where my skills come in.'
Vheod's ever-sharpening eyes saw, far beyond the working men, a tiny village of log homes set among the trees, fading into the sea of brown and green around it. Faint wisps of smoke rose from the tiny homes, greeting the first awakening stars of the evening.
These humans were clearing away trees to make space to build, Vheod realized. A simple enough act, he thought, but something far more important occurred to him as a result. The inhabitants of this world master their environment, rather than letting it master them. That wasn't true in the Lower Planes. As powerful as some of the lords of those nether worlds could be, they were always-consciously or unconsciously-servants of the very planes on which they lived. The fact that the Abyss's inhabitants were creatures of that plane, where evil and chaos were real, tangible things made them servants. The Abyss was chaos and evil, and the tanar’ri and other lower planar creatures that dwelled there, embodiments of those concepts themselves, served the Abyss with a far greater loyalty than any conventional master could ever hope to gain from those under him.
Here, Vheod realized, where the world was a place more than a master, men could make of it what they wanted. Not driven by inborn philosophies or outlooks, they were free to choose their own paths. These weren't people of predetermined destiny but of freedom and choice. Vheod watched these burty, muscular men as they left their work site and was suddenly gripped with sadness-and perhaps envy. He knew that what they had, what he'd never had, was exactly what he wanted.
Vheod fled once again into the darkening forest. Throughout that night, sounds rose from the village. Laughter and song filled the dark, star-filled sky. At one point, Vheod crept close enough to see six tiny wooden buildings, most glowing cheerfully with interior fires lit probably more for the light than the heat, for it was a warm night. The chirping insects covered the soft sounds of his footfalls as he made his way toward the nearest building. Within, a few people spoke of things the eavesdropping Vheod couldn’t understand. As he crouched beneath a window, they talked of someplace called the Dales and of the near-by Desertsmouth Mountains.
'As he listened further, he ascertained that this was just a minor settlement to the west of someplace called Shadowdale, at the edge of the Spiderhaunt Woods. The land that rose toward the west evidently led to the aforementioned mountains. Strangely, the people spoke of a fear of the woods. They wouldn't go past the cleared area, telling of dangers much deeper in the forest.
This is the most beautiful place I have ever been, Vheod thought. How could they fear it? Where are they from that this is a place of fear and danger?
Before he could learn anything else, the light in the building dimmed suddenly, and the people grew silent. Vheod waited in the darkness and quiet for a time, lost in his thoughts.
Vheod woke just before dawn to sounds of movement. He kept very still but opened his eyes. Once again, his ability to see in dark conditions served him well. Two bloated humanoid creatures, covered in short, bristling hair lumbered toward him. Without thinking further, the cambion leaped to his feet and drew his sword, which lay beside him while he slept. The dark-furred things jerked back awkwardly but made no sound. Their long arms had dragged along the ground as they moved, but now their clawed hands reached toward their fat bellies. They opened yellow-fanged mouths in an obvious attempt to give him pause.
It didn't work.
Vheod charged, but as he did, he saw what these mysterious creatures were doing. Each pulled a glistening cord from their abdomens. Somehow, these beasts created webs like a spider. What was worse, each seemed to be quickly forming their creations into forbidding nooses or lariats. Vheod reached his foes before they finished. A mighty swing of his sword stopped one of the creatures from its spinning, and it reeled back from the force of the warrior's blow. Black blood mixed with a thin yellow pus ran from the gash the sword made. The creature flung itself toward Vheod in retaliation, but the cambion swung his sword back around, cutting it down before the beast could reach him with its long, clawed arms.
The other hairy creature had finished its spinning by that point. It held a many-stranded loop of spidery silk aloft over its head and grunted, stamping its feet on the ground with rapid thuds. As Vheod prepared to slay the creature before it could use the weapon, he felt something brush against his back. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that a hairy spider, at least a foot across, had dropped down from the trees above on a cord of webbing.
A tug on his arm drew his attention back toward the humanoid foe. With surprising speed, the creature had looped its makeshift weapon around Vheod's free arm. He pulled at the bond, but the hairy, manlike thing tugged back with great strength. It showed a hideous grin, producing more and more web to keep Vheod bound but to stay out of sword's reach. It was waiting for the spider to bite, Vheod thought, and for its venom to bring him down while keeping him off-balance with the web.
The creature was jostling him too much to allow Vheod to use a spell, and he could feel the spider reach his lower back. Vheod reached behind him with his sword, pretending to slash at the spider, but instead flinging the weapon end over end toward the other foe, even as he felt the spider's fangs sink into his flesh.
The sword caught the creature by surprise, slashed its shoulder and knocked it backward off its feet. Vheod didn't waste a moment in running toward his wounded opponent, which was able to right itself by the time he got to it. The important thing to Vheod was that too much slack in the web strand prevented the creature from using it against him now. Snarling, Vheod began pounding at the creature's head with his fists.
At first, the creature attempted to claw and bite Vheod, but the onrush of blow after blow forced it to hold its long, hairy arms in front of it in a hope to block the torrent of attacks. Vheod's furiously pounding fists continued unabated. Blood and pus ran down the creature's face and shoulder, staining its hairy, naked body The gray- bristled beast fell to its knees, and holding its long-fingered hands over its head, murmured something with a pleading look in its large yellow eyes.
'There is no mercy in the Abyss, creature!' Vheod cried as he lifted his fist, dripping with black blood, down one more time on the beast's face. It fell to the ground with a heavy, wet thud. Reaching behind him, Vheod grabbed the spider and tore it from his back. Holding it in front of him, he shouted, 'And tanar'ri cannot be harmed by simple poison!' He crushed the creature in his hand, and a thick, greenish-yellow ooze squirted out and mingled with the black blood running down his arm. The spider stopped squirming. Vheod dropped it to the ground.
He sat on the spot where he'd slept through most of the night and breathed heavily. For a moment, a feeling of satisfaction and triumph welled up inside him, but as the light of this world's day rose over the horizon, he came to a horrible realization.
This isn't the Abyss.
While he held no doubt that these beasts wanted to feed on his blood, the bright light and pure air of this world cried out in disapproval of his savage methods. Perhaps this place offered a different way than wanton destruction. That creature had wanted mercy. Perhaps it expected to get it. Did the warriors of this world, of 'the Dales” practice a different sort of philosophy? Perhaps on this world survival wasn't the only goal.
He felt a twinge of kinship with the men he'd seen working the day before. Now, after seeing these hairy, inhuman spider-creatures, Vheod wanted it to be true. He wanted to be a part of this world and its people. It was the best place he'd ever been. Still the attack had taught him an important lesson-there were dangers here, just like in the Abyss.
Later on that same day. Vheod took to exploring again. This time he walked in the opposite direction from the settlement he'd visited the night before. Somehow after his actions that morning, he felt unfit to be around those he was sure were far nobler and more merciful than he.
Gray clouds seeped across and eventually covered the sun after midday, and a few hours before twilight distant flashes of lightning crossed the horizon. Vheod noticed that the deeper he traveled into the woods, the fewer animals he saw or heard. Here and there, spider webs-some of enormous size-clung to the trees, but no other signs of more spiders or spidery humanoids revealed themselves. Perhaps they didn't care for the rain.
